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The drive up I-95 could
be done in one good day, but I headed out late from my sister's house.
I got up into Virginia before I had to stop for the night. Along the
way, the heat diminished and the traffic picked up. This portion of
my journey was driving for the sake of getting home and that's it.
I arrived home on August 21st, nearly a week late. In some ways I didn't want to be home yet; and in other very real ways I needed to be at home for my sanity and my health. My roommate had gone away for vacation and come back already. My cats immediately demanded a lot of attention, of course. And I took a very cold shower. The blackouts had affected our water heater and apparently the other tenants of the building had been suffering through the last week with no hot water.
In the
few days between getting home and posting this report, I've been cleaning
my bike and figuring out what to do next with Roxie. I am waiting for
a p-pad to arrive that I ordered weeks ago and in the meantime have
put an older two-up seat on her. The rear fender is in bad shape, due
to a year of abuse. And, as I discovered while taking the tour-pak off,
the forward hole for the seat-mounting nut has broken through. I don't
know if I can get a new fender right now.
I did take my time disassembling
and cleaning Roxie, even to the point of taking the windshield apart to
get underneath the mounting brackets. I really must solve the oil-in-the-air-cleaner
problem and I may remove the hardbags and get leather bags and ghostbrackets
instead.
I've also taken the time to put together this giant ride report; probably more for my own memory than for anyone's edification.
Trip stats:
Nights: 19
States: 24
New tires: 1
Miles: 6875
Average mpg: 45
Gallons of gas: 153
Gatorades: about 40
Dragonflies: 1
I hope this
is not the last trip of this kind I take, nor the longest, shortest, easiest,
or hardest. With luck, I'll do Sturgis in 2004, too!
